If you were here you would feel at home

Goldman, Michael Favala

ISBN 10: 8182539498 / ISBN 13: 9788182539495

Published by Cyberwit.net, 2022

About this Item

paperback This item shows wear from consistent use but remains in good readable condition. It may have marks on or in it, and may show other signs of previous use or shelf wear. May have minor creases or signs of wear on dust jacket. Packed with care, shipped promptly.

Seller Inventory # H-07-4402

Bibliographic Details

• Title: If you were here you would feel at home
• Publisher: Cyberwit.net
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8182539498
• ISBN 13: 9788182539495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

This fourth poetry collection by poet/translator Michael Favala Goldman questions our sense of place. Goldman writes in “Crux”, “You are in the crosshairs. Stay there.” Yet it seems that no matter where we find ourselves, the present is a mixture of the past and our expectations of the future. Which makes being in the moment so fleeting and challenging. He writes in the title poem, “However alive the present is, the past is more so.”

Several of these poems are inspired by or located in Denmark, a small country with a long history, which the poet knows well from his translation work and much time spent there. For example, the reader will encounter Christiania (“the lawless quarter”) in Copenhagen, and the prehistoric Gram Clay Pit (“today’s light/ enters/ where it’s been dark/ until now”).

In addition the reader will recognize familiar universal themes from Goldman’s previous collections, such as the incongruities of relationship (“After all this time/ you’re still giving me/ not what I want/ but what you/ want me to have/ so you can get it from me.”), and the phenomenon of silence (“Silence/ is so polite/ It says, Please,/ you go ahead./ I’ll follow you.”).

Goldman's compact, chiseled poems challenge our belief in our personal realities. And the poems leave space for the reader to meet themselves within the poems’ context. Which makes the overall experience of If you’re here you would feel at home last longer than the time spent reading it.

BIO
Michael Favala Goldman (b.1966) is an award-winning poet, jazz clarinetist, and translator of Danish literature. This is his fourth book of poetry, along with Who has time for this?, Small Sovereign, and Slow Phoenix. Among his seventeen translated books is Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, which made the New York Times Best 10 Books of 2021 as book three of The Copenhagen Trilogy. Goldman lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been running poetry critique groups since 2018.
https://michaelfavalagoldman.com/